Today’s coronavirus news: AstraZeneca may have used outdated info in vaccine trial, health officials say; Drive-thru vaccination site at Canada’s Wonderland opens March 29 - Toronto Star

The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Tuesday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.

10:15 a.m.: Ontario is reporting 1,546 more COVID-19 cases and nine more deaths.

Locally, there are 465 new cases in Toronto, 329 in Peel and 161 in York Region.

Nearly 32,600 tests were completed the previous day.

9:10 a.m. Beginning Tuesday morning, York Region residents aged 70 and older can now be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Meanwhile, a drive-thru site at Canada’s Wonderland will open March 29 by appointment only. The region is expanding vaccines from the previous threshold of 75-years-old as of March 23 at 8:30 a.m.

Residents born in 1951 or earlier can book an appointment at york.ca/COVID19Vaccine

Vaccines are available at the following locations:

• Aaniin Community Centre in Markham

• Cornell Community Centre in Markham

• Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital in Vaughan

• Georgina Ice Palace in Georgina

• Maple Community Centre in Vaughan

• Ray Twinney Recreation Complex in Newmarket

• Richmond Green Sports Centre in Richmond Hill

Clinic dates and times vary for each location. Visit york.ca/Covid19Vaccine for specific clinic details.

Eligible residents can book their first COVID-19 vaccination appointment online; telephone support is available and is listed under the applicable clinic.

7:35 a.m. Another two staff members at popular Oakville restaurant Oliver’s Steakhouse tested positive for a COVID-19 variant of concern.

In an update Monday, Halton Region Public Health said a total of seven staff have now tested positive for the virus.

As well, the health unit extended to 10 days — from March 8 to 18 — the timeframe in which anyone who visited the restaurant at 141 Lakeshore Rd E. is now asked to self-isolate.

“While Halton Region Public Health’s investigation and case and contact management is ongoing, it is estimated that the total number of people exposed during this time is more than 200,” said public health in a statement.

Read the full story from the Star’s Kevin Jiang

7:25 a.m. Real estate agent Treat Hull compares purchasing a property in Prince Edward County this spring to buying toilet paper last March — they are pandemic purchases that take commitment and patience.

He’s not alone. Across Ontario, but especially within a couple of hours’ drive of Toronto, agents say multiple offers and over-asking prices have become the norm in rural towns and lakeside resorts.

The white-hot property market is the result of city dwellers being freed up to telecommute, historically low interest rates and the pandemic search for space in places where work-life balance seems eminently more possible. Add to that the fact that people who have maintained their employment through the public health crisis suddenly have more savings to spend on a second home.

“County real estate prices have become disconnected from reality,” said Hull. “A few years ago $600,000 or $700,000 was a lot of money here. That’s kind of mid-market now.”

Read the full story from the Star’s Tess Kalinowski

6:32 a.m.: Anti-Asian racism has been growing across the country, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) Toronto chapter, which for the first time details the nature of attacks that seem to have intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic.

From verbal insults to physical assaults, including being spat upon, 643 complaints were submitted to the council’s online platforms from March 10 to Dec. 31, 2020. Overwhelmingly, these incidents were fuelled by false and racist beliefs about the spread of COVID-19, according to the study’s authors.

Read the full story from the Star’s Olivia Bowden here.

6:29 a.m.: Emergency relief money to help fight the spread of COVID-19 in Ontario classrooms allowed each school in the province to hire an average of only 1.5 new staff members in 2020, a new analysis shows.

Hires ranged from custodians to administrative staff to teachers, and equate to what critics charge was barely enough to make an overall difference.

The analysis, by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), comes after repeated promises from the provincial government and Education Minister Stephen Lecce that the safety of Ontario’s students, teachers and staff was a “top priority.”

Read the full story from the Star’s Kenyon Wallace here.

6:27 a.m.: President Vladimir Putin said he will get a coronavirus vaccine shot on Tuesday, several months after widespread vaccination started in Russia.

Kremlin opponents have criticized Putin for not getting vaccinated amid a comparatively slow rollout of the shot in Russia, arguing that his reluctance is contributing to the already extensive hesitance about the vaccine. Russia, where only 4.3% of the 146-million population have received at least one dose, lags behind a number of countries in terms of the vaccination rate.

Surveys by Russia’s top independent pollster Levada Center have shown that a number of Russians reluctant to get vaccinated with Sputnik V has grown in recent months — to 62% in February from 58% in December. The Kremlin has said it doesn’t see a connection between Putin not getting vaccinated and public trust in the Russian COVID-19 vaccine.

Putin, 68, told a meeting with government officials and vaccine developers on Monday that he will get his shot “tomorrow,” without specifying which coronavirus vaccine out of the three authorized for use in Russia he will take.

6:24 a.m.: Pakistan’s foreign minister on Tuesday sought more Chinese vaccines to fight the pandemic as the nation reported 72 deaths from COVID-19 and 3,270 new cases in the past 24 hours.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi made the request during a telephone call to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

According to a foreign ministry statement, Qureshi thanked Chinese leadership for wishing Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan a speedy recovery from COVID-19. Khan tested positive over the weekend.

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Qureshi also thanked Beijing for promising 1.5 million doses of Chinese vaccines for Pakistan, saying it had been pivotal to protecting lives. So far, Pakistan has received 1 million of those doses.

The statement quoted Yi as reassuring Pakistan that “China will continue to firmly support Pakistan in its fight against the pandemic.”

Pakistan has reported 633,741 cases among 13,935 deaths from coronavirus since last year.

6:19 a.m.: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman is warning that the government will forcibly close Roman Catholic churches in the capital if priests proceed with a plan to hold masses. That plan is in defiance of new restrictions against public meetings, including religious gatherings, to ease an alarming surge in coronavirus infections.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Tuesday that such exercise of the state’s police powers would not violate the constitutional principle on the separation of church and state and religious freedom, amid the pandemic in Asia’s largest Catholic nation.

“In the exercise of police powers, we can order the churches closed and I hope it will not come to that,” Roque said in response to a question during a televised news conference. “We won’t achieve anything ... if you will defy and you will force the state to close the doors of the church.”

The administrator of the dominant Roman Catholic church in Manila and nearby suburbs said in a pastoral instruction that no processions and motorcades and other street activities would be held during the Lenten period and Easter but added religious worship would be organized inside churches starting Wednesday for a limited number of churchgoers.

6:18 a.m.: A leading European Union official has lashed out at the AstraZeneca vaccine company for its massive shortfall in producing doses for the 27-nation bloc, and threatened that any shots produced by them in the EU could be forced to stay there.

Sandra Galina, the chief of the European Commission’s health division, told legislators on Tuesday that while vaccine producers like Pfizer and Moderna have largely met their commitments “the problem has been AstraZeneca. So it’s one contract which we have a serious problem.”

The European Union has been criticized at home and abroad for its slow rollout of its vaccine drive to the citizens, standing at about a third of jabs given to their citizens compared to nations like the United States and United Kingdom.

Galina says the overwhelming responsibility lies with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was supposed to be the workforce of the drive, because it is cheaper and easier to transport and was supposed to delivered in huge amounts in the first half of the year.

“We are not even receiving a quarter of such deliveries as regards this issue,” Galina said, adding AstraZeneca could expect measures from the EU. “We intend, of course, to take action because, you know, this is the issue that cannot be left unattended.”

The EU already closed an advance purchasing agreement with the Anglo-Swedish company in August last year for up to 400 million doses.

6:17 a.m.: Results from a U.S. trial of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine may have used “outdated information,” U.S. federal health officials said early Tuesday.

The Data and Safety Monitoring Board said in a statement that it was concerned that AstraZeneca may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data.

AstraZeneca reported Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine provided strong protection among adults of all ages in a long-anticipated U.S. study, a finding that could help rebuild public confidence in the shot around the world and move it a step closer to clearance in the U.S.

In the study of 30,000 people, the vaccine was 79% effective at preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19 — including in older adults. There were no severe illnesses or hospitalizations among vaccinated volunteers, compared with five such cases in participants who received dummy shots — a small number, but consistent with findings from Britain and other countries that the vaccine protects against the worst of the disease.

AstraZeneca also said the study’s independent safety monitors found no serious side effects, including no increased risk of rare blood clots like those identified in Europe, a scare that led numerous countries to briefly suspend vaccinations last week.

6:15 a.m.: A report by advocates for Canadian inmates is criticizing the rising rates of incarceration in at least two provincial jail systems amid the continuing pandemic.

About a year after the first COVID-19 cases emerged in Ontario jails, the update by the Prison Pandemic Partnership says the risk to inmates increases when there is less space.

The partnership — which includes the Centre for Access to Information and Justice, the Criminalization and Punishment Education Project and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association — estimates that more than 7,000 cases of COVID-19 have been linked to Canadian jails and prisons, including over 5,000 infections among prisoners.

It says at the outset of the pandemic, from March through June last year, prison populations across the country fell in an effort to increase the space available and enable physical distancing.

However, the study used Statistics Canada data to show that most provincial and territorial jail systems started to put more people back in jail over the summer.

4 a.m.: The latest numbers on COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Tuesday March 23, 2021.

In Canada, the provinces are reporting 143,559 new vaccinations administered for a total of 4,097,844 doses given. Nationwide, 633,459 people or 1.7 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated. The provinces have administered doses at a rate of 10,812.46 per 100,000.

There were no new vaccines delivered to the provinces and territories for a total of 4,773,170 doses delivered so far. The provinces and territories have used 85.85 per cent of their available vaccine supply.

Please note that Newfoundland, P.E.I., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the territories typically do not report on a daily basis.

4 a.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 4 a.m. ET on Tuesday March 23, 2021.

There are 938,719 confirmed cases in Canada (35,844 active, 880,159 resolved, 22,716 deaths). The total case count includes 13 confirmed cases among repatriated travellers.

There were 3,781 new cases Monday. The rate of active cases is 94.31 per 100,000 people. Over the past seven days, there have been a total of 25,673 new cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is 3,668.

There were 40 new reported deaths Monday. Over the past seven days there have been a total of 221 new reported deaths. The seven-day rolling average of new reported deaths is 32. The seven-day rolling average of the death rate is 0.08 per 100,000 people. The overall death rate is 59.77 per 100,000 people.

There have been 26,704,383 tests completed.

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2021-03-23 14:15:00Z
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